The off season is almost over and the first national regatta of the year fast approaching, so just what have I been doing over the winter to get me ready to race at Nottingham in just over a weeks time and build a base for the coming season?
Well my winter training started in October. I spent three weeks gradually reducing the amount of paddling I was doing then boosting the amount of gym and land based fitness. By the end of these three weeks I was no longer paddling on the water and doing around six sessions in the gym, two runs, two paddling machine sessions, two swims and a bike each week. After those three weeks I promptly took a rest week in Lisbon, Portugal to kick back, play some golf and see some sights.
On returning from Portugal I went back to full training and continued through November and December with a rest week over Christmas. The weeks stayed very similar to before with no water training mainly because it wasn’t possible. I spent a lot of time with my strength and conditioning coach Jon working to improve my peak power output, my strength endurance level and build a strong base to work from for the coming season.
By February I was starting to think more about the coming season and starting to taper my winter training. I reduced the amount of swimming I was doing and started to spend more time on the paddling machine. I continued to focus on my gym work and felt it was important to carry on developing in this area to enable me to peak around July rather than peaking early.
At the end of February I spent a week in Castelo Gandolfo near Rome, Italy for a training camp with the rest of the U18 team. While still not spending much time on the water we did make much use of the paddling tank to get back into paddling and started to train the K4 (2nd picture). This training camp was a great way to start the transition into the racing season by allowing single focus on training and removing the distractions of home.
Having been back from Italy over a month now my training is now mainly water based with six sessions on the water, three gym sessions, a run and a bike in an average week. I’ve now almost completely made the transition from winter training into ‘in season’ training however most of my paddle sessions are still long, working on that strength endurance in the boat so as to prevent early season peaking and improve on my major weakness.
The first regatta of the year next week will give me an insight into how successful my winter training has been but I’m not so worried about the times or placing’. For me it’s a good introduction to racing again and will show me the areas I need to work on. Hopefully there won’t be too many!
